The Death Of The Vinyl Record

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We are in the age of vinyl decline as well we know, this is such a tragic and foul situation, the beauty and elegance of a vinyl record, be it a seven inch rarity or a twelve inch obscurity, will it seems, be lost forever. Yes they still turn a small amount of vinyl releases out, but our children are growing up in a physical free musical format world, the evil and grotesque 'download', this is akin to the sinister Third Reich. A vinyl record is not unlike a new born infant, it demands attention, its fragility and innocence are to be treated with absolute care and love, that only a Mother can give her new born. When I look at that piano black gloss finish and those grooves which are like the lines in a wise mans face, it gives me a feeling that no other inanimate object can, and the reason being, is it holds such power and emotion, for when the stylus picks up that sound it moves us all to the next level irregardless of the genre of Soul you care to follow. The beautiful and filigree artwork on the label, the intricate and seemingly hand written inscription in the deadwax resembles the ancient writings found only on the walls of classical Egyptian tombs. One only has to read John Manships deadwax descriptions (and I quote) "it reads P-078- A- STEREO hold the p @ the 6 o' clock position, @ the 2 o'clock position is the word MASTERFONICS reading anti-clockwise the C resembles L."

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We are in the age of vinyl decline as well we know, this is such a tragic and foul situation, the beauty and elegance of a vinyl record, be it a seven inch rarity or a twelve inch obscurity, will it seems, be lost forever. Yes they still turn a small amount of vinyl releases out, but our children are growing up in a physical free musical format world, the evil and grotesque 'download', this is akin to the sinister Third Reich. A vinyl record is not unlike a new born infant, it demands attention, its fragility and innocence are to be treated with absolute care and love, that only a Mother can give her new born. When I look at that piano black gloss finish and those grooves which are like the lines in a wise mans face, it gives me a feeling that no other inanimate object can, and the reason being, is it holds such power and emotion, for when the stylus picks up that sound it moves us all to the next level irregardless of the genre of Soul you care to follow. The beautiful and filigree artwork on the label, the intricate and seemingly hand written inscription in the deadwax resembles the ancient writings found only on the walls of classical Egyptian tombs. One only has to read John Manships deadwax descriptions (and I quote) "it reads P-078- A- STEREO hold the p @ the 6 o' clock position, @ the 2 o'clock position is the word MASTERFONICS reading anti-clockwise the C resembles L."

YES LET US ALL BEMOAN THE PASSING OF THE VINYL RECORD....................

Brett Franklin......in mourning................

Breaking news...man lands on the moon...

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I have to disagree Brett. Vinyl is on a revival and bands are actually going with vinyl releases now AND would you believe, the cassette tape is having a resurge! There was a great programme on radio 4 last week dealing with this very topic.

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I have to disagree Brett. Vinyl is on a revival and bands are actually going with vinyl releases now AND would you believe, the cassette tape is having a resurge! There was a great programme on radio 4 last week dealing with this very topic.

No Paul look at the figures, i'm on about the download as opposed to the vinyl or even cd sales...........it will always be a curio to bands, but the under 25's only buy downloads, to buy vinyl is unusual amongst the young elements who buy new and current music.

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Many young listeners discovered LPs after they rifled through their parents' collections looking for oldies and found that they liked the warmer sound quality of records, the more elaborate album covers and liner notes that come with them, and the experience of putting one on and sharing it with friends, as opposed to plugging in some earbuds and listening alone. "Bad sound on an iPod has had an impact on a lot of people going back to vinyl," says David MacRunnel, a 15-year-old high school sophomore from Creve Coeur, Mo., who owns more than 1,000 records.

Vinyl records are just a small scratch on the surface when it comes to total album sales--only about 0.2%, compared to 10% for digital downloads and 89.7% for CDs, according to Nielsen SoundScan--but these numbers may underrepresent the vinyl trend since they don't always include sales at smaller indie shops where vinyl does best. Still, 990,000 vinyl albums were sold in 2007, up 15.4% from the 858,000 units bought in 2006. Mike Dreese, CEO of Newbury Comics, a New England chain of independent music retailers that sells LPs and CDs, says his vinyl sales were up 37% last year..."

"It's not a significant part of our business, but there is enough there for me to take someone and have half their time devoted to making vinyl a real business," says John Esposito, president and CEO of WEA Corp., the U.S. distribution company of Warner Music Group, which posted a 30% increase in LP sales last year. In October, Amazon.com introduced a vinyl-only store and increased its selection to 150,000 titles across 20 genres.

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I agree more people download than anything else, that doesn't mean vinyl is dead though, now if you'd posted this thread a few years ago, when CDs came out, most people would have agreed, but vinyl has survived the Cd and i'm sure it will survive downloads.

No one disputes downloads are king, it's the death of vinyl that's in doubt.

Edited January 7, 2010 by Matt Male

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I have to disagree Brett. Vinyl is on a revival and bands are actually going with vinyl releases now AND would you believe, the cassette tape is having a resurge! There was a great programme on radio 4 last week dealing with this very topic.

I heard that programme! Amazing and nice to hear people enjoying cassettes again. I don't think the mini-disc will make a comeback though...

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IFPI's Digital Music Report 2009, published today, gives a comprehensive overview of trends in the music business internationally. It shows an industry that has shifted its approach from one based only on unit sales of music to "monetising" access to music across a multitude of channels and platforms.

Single track downloads, up 24 per cent in 2008 to 1.4 billion units globally, continue to drive the online market, but digital albums are also growing healthily (up 36%). The top-selling digital single of 2008 was Lil Wayne's Lollipop with sales of 9.1 million units - 1.8 million more than the 2007 best selling digital single.

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I agree more people download than anything else, that doesn't mean vinyl is dead though, now if you'd posted this thread a few years ago, when CDs came out, most people would have agreed, but vinyl has survived the Cd and i'm sure it will survive downloads.

No one disputes downloads are king, it's the death of vinyl that's in doubt.

Hi Matt but the younger generation are buying the music, we are the dinosaurs, my initial point ( and it was written tongue in cheek), was that in the next 30 years vinyl will become just a curio, not unlike 35mm film in cameras a few freaks and radicals enjoying something different.........

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just read this if you think vinyl is better selling than downloads.............

No one is saying vinyl is selling better than downloads, we are just saying that vinyl is not dying and is in fact more popular now than it was when CDs came out and pretty much everyone thought vinyl was gone forever.

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Hi Matt but the younger generation are buying the music, we are the dinosaurs, my initial point ( and it was written tongue in cheek), was that in the next 30 years vinyl will become just a curio, not unlike 35mm film in cameras a few freaks and radicals enjoying something different.........

I'm not sure this is true either. I agree that what youngsters do might end vinyl for ever, but i can't helping thinking that your prediction about vinyl becoming a curio was the same thing everyone, and i mean everyone, said twenty years ago when CDs came out... and twenty years later vinyl is still being pressed commercially.

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No one is saying vinyl is selling better than downloads, we are just saying that vinyl is not dying and is in fact more popular now than it was when CDs came out and pretty much everyone thought vinyl was gone forever.

Matt read my reply directly above yours.........

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I'm not sure this is true either. I agree that what youngsters do might end vinyl for ever, but i can't helping thinking that your prediction about vinyl becoming a curio was the same thing everyone, and i mean everyone, said twenty years ago when CDs came out... and twenty years later vinyl is still being pressed commercially.

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Hi Rob/Karen, yeah for us who like music from 30/40 years back, mainly on about new music and it's format.

Download if its not available on Vinyl then have the good stuff "Carved" for playing out- at least you can cut out all the crap release's that have been flying about as the latest "In thing" in the last couple of years (and the greedy middleman as well ) .

The cream will always rise to the top, even on down load /you can contact the singers/owners direct and ask them to do a limited vinyl run for the UK market-instant collectible's-I even have a name for the label -

BRETTIF Records-"Its what's in the run-out Grooves that counts" I am putting my order in for the first 10 copies now !

Rob & Karen

Edited January 7, 2010 by Karen and Rob Wigley

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Yes a few more discs get released now and again, but as much for there novelty value. Last week Tecknics anounced the end of the 1200/1210 series turn table. It is a dying formate for new product. But it will be around along time, just think how many were made and have been collected by collectors in many musical styles. It will die when there is no longer anyone who cares.

On a more positive note, loving this weather.

Dave

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Download if its not available on Vinyl then have the good stuff "Carved" for playing out- at least you can cut out all the crap release's that have been flying about as the latest "In thing" in the last couple of years (and the greedy middleman as well ) .

The cream will always rise to the top, even on down load /you can contact the singers/owners direct and ask them to do a limited vinyl run for the UK market-instant collectible's-I even have a name for the label -

BRETTIF Records-"Its what's in the run-out Grooves that counts" I am putting my order in for the fist 10 copies now !

Rob & Karen

......wish i'd have kept quiet, just got pissed off with offers to buy downloads via e-mail.i'm off

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Yes a few more discs get released now and again, but as much for there novelty value. Last week Tecknics anounced the end of the 1200/1210 series turn table. It is a dying formate for new product. But it will be around along time, just think how many were made and have been collected by collectors in many musical styles. It will die when there is no longer anyone who cares.

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Brett actually all I wondered why you decided to mourn the demise of vinyl now when it was a decade ago that it disappeared, and more imprtantly, I'm f*cking worried now that you know my every movement on soul source

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Brett actually all I wondered why you decided to mourn the demise of vinyl now when it was a decade ago that it disappeared, and more imprtantly, I'm f*cking worried now that you know my every movement on soul source

Hi Pete, no i am just sick of e-mails etc, offering downloads for sale, got my back up.and hell you know me im mild mannered, and i guess yes i am 10 years too late but what the hell....your safe Pete, i have a 5 year old daughter that keeps me away from this forum, so my incursions are few and far..

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I love tapes. I watched Hi Fidelity last night and the bit about the art of making a mix tape is so true. Making someone a cd is too easy to do, even from vinyl. I love tapes but it saddens me to say my tape listening days are nearly over as my wife bought me a cd player for the car this Christmas.

Downloads are horrible things. I've never gone near them. When i was a teenager you had to make the effort to accumulate a selection of cd's that you could be proud to show your friends. And I was very proud of my cd collection. Every album showed that I'd been interested by that artist and made the effort to track down their material and give it a good listen to. And I did listen to it as I'd just parted with £15 for my troubles. And it excited me to get home and listen to it.

Now a days its very common for teenagers to have a computer with maybe 10,000 tracks on it. Most of which they will never listen to. So the musical journey then I went on that took me from a hits of the 80's double tape in 1988 to rare soul in 2004 is just not happening for the youth of today. They just download everything without really listening to anything.

As the musical format changes it allows the listener to become more blase'. You can't skip a vinyl record so you listen to it properly. Same with tapes. Downloading is an ignorant way of aquiring music in my opinion. Some things shouldn't be that convenient.

But vinyl has been absent for a while. I'm 28 and started on tapes then cds. Vinyl never played a part in my youth.

How many genres are enjoyed through vinyl the way rare soul is? Is it so important in the grand scale of things?

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I love tapes. I watched Hi Fidelity last night and the bit about the art of making a mix tape is so true. Making someone a cd is too easy to do, even from vinyl. I love tapes but it saddens me to say my tape listening days are nearly over as my wife bought me a cd player for the car this Christmas.

Downloads are horrible things. I've never gone near them. When i was a teenager you had to make the effort to accumulate a selection of cd's that you could be proud to show your friends. And I was very proud of my cd collection. Every album showed that I'd been interested by that artist and made the effort to track down their material and give it a good listen to. And I did listen to it as I'd just parted with £15 for my troubles. And it excited me to get home and listen to it.

Now a days its very common for teenagers to have a computer with maybe 10,000 tracks on it. Most of which they will never listen to. So the musical journey then I went on that took me from a hits of the 80's double tape in 1988 to rare soul in 2004 is just not happening for the youth of today. They just download everything without really listening to anything.

As the musical format changes it allows the listener to become more blase'. You can't skip a vinyl record so you listen to it properly. Same with tapes. Downloading is an ignorant way of aquiring music in my opinion. Some things shouldn't be that convenient.

But vinyl has been absent for a while. I'm 28 and started on tapes then cds. Vinyl never played a part in my youth.

How many genres are enjoyed through vinyl the way rare soul is? Is it so important in the grand scale of things?

Very well put Mr Barker..............well you are a new father, i expected no less....

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I love tapes. I watched Hi Fidelity last night and the bit about the art of making a mix tape is so true. Making someone a cd is too easy to do, even from vinyl. I love tapes but it saddens me to say my tape listening days are nearly over as my wife bought me a cd player for the car this Christmas.

Downloads are horrible things. I've never gone near them. When i was a teenager you had to make the effort to accumulate a selection of cd's that you could be proud to show your friends. And I was very proud of my cd collection. Every album showed that I'd been interested by that artist and made the effort to track down their material and give it a good listen to. And I did listen to it as I'd just parted with £15 for my troubles. And it excited me to get home and listen to it.

Now a days its very common for teenagers to have a computer with maybe 10,000 tracks on it. Most of which they will never listen to. So the musical journey then I went on that took me from a hits of the 80's double tape in 1988 to rare soul in 2004 is just not happening for the youth of today. They just download everything without really listening to anything.

As the musical format changes it allows the listener to become more blase'. You can't skip a vinyl record so you listen to it properly. Same with tapes. Downloading is an ignorant way of aquiring music in my opinion. Some things shouldn't be that convenient.

But vinyl has been absent for a while. I'm 28 and started on tapes then cds. Vinyl never played a part in my youth.

How many genres are enjoyed through vinyl the way rare soul is? Is it so important in the grand scale of things?

I LOVE downloading my music, though I wouldn't if I had to pay for it, I don't mean chart albums I'm talking about rare, obscure and interesting deleted music from blogsites; I've got 27,000 tracks in itunes, and no, I know I'll never listen to them all but I put it on random and listen to an hours worth every day and I've heard music that I would have never, ever heard before; I'm still being educated music-wise at the age of almost 50, today I've heard blues, bluegrass, reggae, garage rock, psychedlia and tomorrow I'll hear another 30 or 40 tracks I've never heard before. That is my listening pleasure and it's got nothing to do with the thrill of having records on 7" vinyl, that to me is a totally different, more personal thing and always will be.

But I don't know how anyone can knock having too much music!

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What I mean Pete is kids downloading music will be detrimental as they won't absorb it in the same way. I can see how it would be handy to a true music lover to access a greater scope but if you take away the musical apprenticeship at the key time, ie 10-16, then you're left with nothing.

I was at a music festival last year and we saw Carl Cox play a old school house set. Not a record in sight. I was genuinely surprised. Surely someone like that would have the vinyl bug and stay true to their roots?

Convenience is king it seems.

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I LOVE downloading my music, though I wouldn't if I had to pay for it, I don't mean chart albums I'm talking about rare, obscure and interesting deleted music from blogsites; I've got 27,000 tracks in itunes, and no, I know I'll never listen to them all but I put it on random and listen to an hours worth every day and I've heard music that I would have never, ever heard before; I'm still being educated music-wise at the age of almost 50, today I've heard blues, bluegrass, reggae, garage rock, psychedlia and tomorrow I'll hear another 30 or 40 tracks I've never heard before. That is my listening pleasure and it's got nothing to do with the thrill of having records on 7" vinyl, that to me is a totally different, more personal thing and always will be.

But I don't know how anyone can knock having too much music!

EXACTAMUNDO PETE I LOVE ME VINYL, AND HAVE SPENT THOUSANDS OUT OF MY MEAGER WAGES ON RARE SOUL OVER THE LAST 25 YEARS OR SO, BUT I ALSO HAVE A PENCHANT FOR ALTERNATIVE MUSIC OF THE 90T'S, MAINLY AMERICAN GRUNGE AND POST GRUNGE BANDS, AND HAVE OVER 5000 DOWNLOADS OF THEM BUT IF I CAN GET MY HANDS ON THE ODD VINYL 33/45S IN A REAL FORMAT I BUY THOSE TOO

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No one is saying vinyl is selling better than downloads, we are just saying that vinyl is not dying and is in fact more popular now than it was when CDs came out and pretty much everyone thought vinyl was gone forever.

Sorry Matt, it's not more popular then when CD's came out mate. I was Head Of A&R for the world's largest vinyl reissue company in the late 90's and I reissued some 400 albums and 150 12"'s between 1998-2002 and it was a law of diminishing returns unfortunately. These days it's really a cottage industry with a small but fanatical audience.

Couple of other points which tend to confirm Brett's feelings:-

1) There is now pretty much only one decent vinyl pressing plant in the UK - most of the others have closed

down (including Chris King's Independent Pressing which was superb whilst it lasted) and the art of pressing

7" singles is becoming like as difficult as finding dry-stone walling experts who know what they're doing. In

other words, it's a dying art. Phil Dick and myself found this out the hard way when we did some Soul

Intention releases 18 months ago.

2) There is only one major music chain left in the UK - HMV and they no longer stock vinyl in any of their stores.

What remains is a tiny network of small independent shops which, more often then not, stock very few new

vinyl releases whilst fighting to keep trading.

Soul Source and a handful of other forums are probably the last bastions of true vinyl fanatics so we generally get a very subjective viewpoint on this subject. In the wider world vinyl is a quaint reminder of a bygone era.

The same conversations about formats no doubt happened 100 years ago when people bemoaned the passing of the cylinder, then 50 years ago with the passing of the 78, then 30 years ago when the 8 track cartridge hit the dust, then 20 years ago when the cassette imploded etc, etc, etc.

That's why I keep saying that it will be important to set up an archive or museum of the Northern Soul era otherwise future generations will not be aware of the sheer magic of a wonderful scene.

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What I mean Pete is kids downloading music will be detrimental as they won't absorb it in the same way. I can see how it would be handy to a true music lover to access a greater scope but if you take away the musical apprenticeship at the key time, ie 10-16, then you're left with nothing.

I was at a music festival last year and we saw Carl Cox play a old school house set. Not a record in sight. I was genuinely surprised. Surely someone like that would have the vinyl bug and stay true to their roots?

Convenience is king it seems.

Convenience is definitely king for those guys. I caught Carl Cox and John Digweed in Ibiza five years ago and it was all CD's and Laptops. No vinyl anywhere. Did the 10,000 kids in Space give a toss? No, of course not.

Also, lugging vinyl around the world is a costly excercise these days! They can either have 80,000 tunes on a laptop or pay a fortune to transport a couple of hundred 12"ers!

Also, hardly any of the dance companies bother pressing vinyl anymore. They may get 500 sales if they're lucky and that's not enough to break even leave alone run a company.........

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Sorry Matt, it's not more popular then when CD's came out mate. I was Head Of A&R for the world's largest vinyl reissue company in the late 90's and I reissued some 400 albums and 150 12"'s between 1998-2002 and it was a law of diminishing returns unfortunately. These days it's really a cottage industry with a small but fanatical audience.

Couple of other points which tend to confirm Brett's feelings:-

1) There is now pretty much only one decent vinyl pressing plant in the UK - most of the others have closed

down (including Chris King's Independent Pressing which was superb whilst it lasted) and the art of pressing

7" singles is becoming like as difficult as finding dry-stone walling experts who know what they're doing. In

other words, it's a dying art. Phil Dick and myself found this out the hard way when we did some Soul

Intention releases 18 months ago.

2) There is only one major music chain left in the UK - HMV and they no longer stock vinyl in any of their stores.

What remains is a tiny network of small independent shops which, more often then not, stock very few new

vinyl releases whilst fighting to keep trading.

Soul Source and a handful of other forums are probably the last bastions of true vinyl fanatics so we generally get a very subjective viewpoint on this subject. In the wider world vinyl is a quaint reminder of a bygone era.

The same conversations about formats no doubt happened 100 years ago when people bemoaned the passing of the cylinder, then 50 years ago with the passing of the 78, then 30 years ago when the 8 track cartridge hit the dust, then 20 years ago when the cassette imploded etc, etc, etc.

That's why I keep saying that it will be important to set up an archive or museum of the Northern Soul era otherwise future generations will not be aware of the sheer magic of a wonderful scene.

Brett should be the curator!

Ian D

From the horses mouth..................

Thanks Ian, i wasn't trying to score points just affirming a point (like has been mentioned before, 10 years ago etc) that i find it really quite sad that my daughter (age 5) will only see vinyl records as a curio/ novelty item, you know how kids are they want whats current, and who can blame them, i still feel strongly that a vinyl record is indeed a ' Objet D'Art'....and the passing of such should be indeed be bemoaned.........

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Convenience is definitely king for those guys. I caught Carl Cox and John Digweed in Ibiza five years ago and it was all CD's and Laptops. No vinyl anywhere. Did the 10,000 kids in Space give a toss? No, of course not.

Also, lugging vinyl around the world is a costly excercise these days! They can either have 80,000 tunes on a laptop or pay a fortune to transport a couple of hundred 12"ers!

Also, hardly any of the dance companies bother pressing vinyl anymore. They may get 500 sales if they're lucky and that's not enough to break even leave alone run a company.........

Ian D

While certainly true for house/techno/electro DJs, almost everyone on the dubstep/drum'n'bass circuits plays from vinyl - largely due to the better bass response, presumably.

Also loads of club DJs use Serato (mixing software that uses a laptop and MP3s or WAVs), normally controlled by record decks, though some do use CD decks to drive it..